


And I thrill, then, I thrill: that it cannot be so

by kriswithakay



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Anxious Crowley (Good Omens), Asexual Crowley (Good Omens), Demisexual Crowley (Good Omens), Holy Water, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Panic Attacks, Scene: Soho 1967 (Good Omens), Self-Worth Issues, description of a panic attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 00:53:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21788638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kriswithakay/pseuds/kriswithakay
Summary: Crowley has finally gotten what he's always wanted, and now he was going to lose everything he has because of it.---(Crowley realizes that his love for Aziraphale may not be as unrequited as he thought, and panics. When it was hopeless, he had nothing to lose. But if it's real, Crowley knows he's going to ruin it.)
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 113





	And I thrill, then, I thrill: that it cannot be so

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Pablo Neruda's "I like you calm, as if you were absent"

Crowley preferred the way it was before that night in ’67, with the holy water. Before that night, he had known how it was supposed to work.

Crowley loved Aziraphale. Aziraphale did not love Crowley. They were friends, and Crowley would not give that up for anything in the world; hearing their millennia-long friendship reduced to ‘fraternizing’ had been like a blow to the gut. And then. Neon lights and a district full of sin and an overly complex heist plan. A witchfinder, and several hundred pounds. A thermos.

“You go too fast for me, Crowley.”

Oh, it had hurt, certainly. In the moment he said it, in the moments just after, as Aziraphale exited the car and walked away, it had started an ache in Crowley’s stomach. But it wasn’t the same sort of ache as the one caused by ‘fraternizing.’

He didn’t let himself realize what it was until he was back in his flat and had temporarily stashed the thermos in his warded lockbox along with the few souvenirs of centuries past that he still kept with him. Once it was locked away, once he had drawn all his curtains to the sinful light of London, only then did Crowley remove his glasses and sink onto his throne, kicking his feet up onto his marble desk and letting the ache consume him, wrapping a stranglehold around his windpipe, squeezing his stomach until he felt ready to vomit. His muscles all locked up, freezing him in place.

Crowley had had a very long time to get used to dealing with this feeling. Centuries. Millennia. He had been very interested when humans started delving into psychotherapy and brain chemistry. It wasn’t the same for angels and demons of course, his corporation wasn’t really him anymore than his shoes were really his feet. But some of the principles did carry over. And when humans started throwing around words like ‘panic attacks and ‘anxiety’ and the ever popular ‘fight or flight or freeze’ (though people tended to forget about that last option), Crowley had been very interested. In the early 2000s he’d go to a few seminars, learn about grounding techniques and self-reflection and meditation and antidepressants.

All of this is to say that Crowley knew how to deal with this feeling when it got overwhelming. He knew how to ride it out, and to figure out how long it would take to dissipate, and how to pack it all into a box for later when he couldn’t deal with it in the moment. He knew.

But knowing didn’t make it any easier. And he hadn’t felt it this badly in decades.

The thing was…

The _thing_ was.

The thing.

Crowley loved Aziraphale. Aziraphale didn’t love Crowley.

Except apparently he wanted to.

And that was so, so much worse than a simple case of unrequited love. Crowley had long since burned through the worst of his despair at the idea that his angel would never love him (or mostly burned through it at least, so it only came out when he was very drunk or very tired or both). He had made his peace with it, as far as he was able. Even if Crowley couldn’t have everything he wanted (illicit fantasies of having his hair braided, holding hands while out to dinner, laying his _head_ on Aziraphale’s _stomach_ and _sleeping there_ ), he loved to simply spend time with his angel, to talk with him and argue with him. It was so easy being friends with Aziraphale, even when it really shouldn’t have been. They fit together so well, had known each other so long. Crowley valued their friendship more than anything else in his life, and so was ecstatic to keep that friendship intact, even if he occasionally got lost in a fugue of depression over being unlovable. He loved their friendship. It was what they had, what they had been for millennia.

And Aziraphale . . . wanted more. Just like Crowley did.

And that was terrifying.

Crowley didn’t know the rules to _more_. Didn’t know how much the angel wanted, how little, he went too fast apparently but how slow was slow enough or too slow would the angel be upset if he went _too_ slow, he’d been letting Crowley flirt with him for centuries without telling him to stop but was that part of _too fast_ , Crowley had figured he didn’t mind since he’d let it keep happening but what if he did should Crowley pull back on that but what if he didn’t want that to stop and Crowley started going too _slow_ instead, was that better or worse than too fast, if he overcompensated would Aziraphale lose interest, how was he supposed to keep Aziraphale interested in him, oh Jesus tapdancing Christ _how was he supposed to keep Aziraphale interested in him_ —

* * *

Breathing exercises are one of the first techniques that will be recommended to those who suffer from anxiety and panic attacks. Some people may scoff at the idea, but they are incredibly useful. Like a built-in reset button for the human body, or a complicated button combination in an old video game that lets players access hidden developer commands. Five seconds in, hold. Five seconds out. Repeat. Five seconds in.

Hold.

Out. Five seconds.

When Crowley finally got his muscles to unclench enough to drop his legs to the floor, his whole body felt numb. He rose in a stupor, stumbling a bit and keeping one hand stretched toward the wall but not quite touching it. He staggered to his bedroom and fell into his sheets, all the while breathing the way a kindly-eyed woman with blonde hair had taught him in 1952. She had asked him if he was a veteran. She had assumed he was shell-shocked. Was that the term they used in the 50s? Crowley couldn’t concentrate long enough to remember. His mind was like a ball of yarn falling down some stairs, bouncing along from thought to thought, unable to stop or slow down or control its direction. His body felt numb and his mind was spooling out down an endless staircase, and it was almost relaxing in how utterly unrelaxing it was. He couldn’t control anything his mind was doing; he didn’t even bother to try. Instead he very deliberately, with the sort of ability a human can only pray for, forced himself asleep, and stopped thinking about anything at all.

His dreams were a riot of color, as they always were. It was neon pink and fuzzy one moment, sun dappled green on a forest floor the next, then the blue-then-gray-then-green of Aziraphale’s eyes appearing and disappearing like a flickering candle flame. Wings black like an oil spill, twisting in the light and turning shades of purple and green and deep navy blue. A tartan pattern that he knew like the back of his hand.

* * *

When he woke up the next morning, Crowley laid still for a long time. He was worn out, mind fuzzy and unfocused. His ball-of-yarn-brain was one long string stretching out to infinity. The panic was probably still there somewhere, but his brain had built walls around it in the night. If he thought too hard they would crack open and it would come spilling out again, but for now they were holding. He stared at the concrete gray wall of his bedroom, and poked very gingerly at the object of the previous night’s episode.

Crowley had a very good imagination. He had built a garden in his mind, and he would go there when he wanted impossible things. When he wanted Aziraphale to hold him, when he wanted to taste a Mesoamerican fruit that had gone extinct millennia ago, when he wanted to see all of his stars at once. When he was in his garden he didn’t have to worry about how to act. What to say. What to think about anything. In his garden he could be selfish, and ask that an angel stroke his hair and whisper kind things to him for hours on end. He could imagine being touched softly, slowly, a human urge he didn’t fully understand but thought might be nice if it was with Aziraphale. He could imagine being a selfish lover in a way he had never been on those rare occasions he had lain with a human. Imagine being kissed in the way he wanted, touched in the way he wanted, stroked and caressed and held with no regard to how long it took or the silly faces he might accidentally make or the cut-off noises that spilled out of him when human language couldn’t sit right on his tongue. He could have that, in his garden.

But if it was real, which he had abruptly found out was an actual, feasible possibility, he had no idea what to do or how to act, how to make absolutely sure that he _didn’t_ mess it up. He would panic. He knew he would panic. He always panicked.

He thought he had known how it was supposed to work, but he had to rethink all that now.

Crowley loved Aziraphale. Aziraphale wanted to love Crowley. They were friends, and Crowley would not give that up for anything in the world. If Crowley tried to show his love, he would mess it up. Aziraphale would stop loving him. Aziraphale would stop being his friend.

Crowley had finally gotten what he had always wanted, and now he was going to lose everything he had because of it.

Crowley closed his eyes and went back to sleep. He wouldn’t get up again until the panic had been well and truly walled up, and he could try to figure out how to give Aziraphale what he wanted without ruining the best thing in his life.


End file.
